Texas Gov. Greg Abbott reportedly is planning to issue an executive order this week that sets in motion a relaxation of the restrictions enacted to fight to coronavirus pandemic.
Allow me to offer this bit of advice: Go slow on returning to what we call “normal” activity.
Abbott’s emergency response team tells us that social distancing is doing its job, that the infection rate is stabilizing if not declining. Indeed, we’re practicing it in our household, as are our sons. My wife and I haven’t socialized with anyone since the pandemic began creeping into our lives.
Abbott doesn’t seem like someone who is going to rush to return to normal activity. He was a bit slow to issue the stay at home order, although he didn’t call it that. Whatever. We’re staying at home and that’s worked well for us. We venture out only to buy food at the grocery store or to purchase weed killer at the garden shop.
Princeton has shut down dining in at restaurants and practically every form of service business you can name. Haircuts? Gymnasiums? Forget about it!
I did walk into a bank the other day wearing a face mask my wife had made and joked to the teller how strange it felt to be wearing a mask while walking into a bank. She didn’t have me arrested, for which I was much obliged.
This so-called “new normal” is beginning to feel more like just plain “normal” the longer we’re into it.
But … whatever Abbott does later this week, I urge him to go slow in suggesting how we should behave. For that matter, all of us on the receiving end of the governor’s suggestion would do well to proceed with all due caution.
Social distancing is working, man, but we ain’t in the clear.
